Tuesday 27 July 2010

Virgin email stopped working? A solution

Has your Virgin Media email stopped working today? I have an ntlworld.com email address and this morning the incoming mail server started  rejecting all requests ("terminated unexpectedly") from Outlook Express.

Well, after much googling (anyone who has Virgin will know how pointless and time-wasting ringing them is!) I found the Virgin support forum and this post. The Upshot being what worked for me was to turn off SSL for the imcoming mail (Tools->Account->Mail->ntlworld->Properties->Advanced->untick incoming mail SSL). I am now receiving email again (I imagine it will stop working again once they "fix" it and I'll have to put it back). YMMV


Reading through the forums it seems that this kind of thing is quite a frequent occurrence each time picking out one of their other email domains (blueyonder, virginmedia).

When people ask me whether I would recommend Virgin, I always say that their broadband and TV service is excellent (I love on-demand TV and the broadband has never let me down) but woe betide if anything ever does go wrong as they have the worst customer service this side of Betelgeuse! (Indian call-centre script, have you tried turning it on and off, our systems aren't working at the moment, etc...)

UPDATE: They seem to have fixed it now.
UPDATE 28/07/2010 (the next day). Sigh, it's not working again, switching off ssl works...

Sunday 4 July 2010

Twitter is not just for Chirstmas...I mean...Elections

Well, it is if you're a Tory MP in a safe seat who was slightly unnerved by a stronger than expected LibDem challenge during the General Election and felt you should make an effort to appear responsive to your constituents.

Mark Prisk, the Cornwall-loving MP for Hertford & Stortford opened a twitter account during the General Election in which he didn't really respond to anything other than sycophantic questioning and even then not much (I'd like to check to check the validity of this half-remembered slur but guess what...).

Mr Prisk was safely re-elected with 54% of the vote and, as if by magic, as of last week, the @Mark_Prisk twitter account has been deleted.

Well, it's not like he needs to be accessible to his constituents for another 5 years, is it?

Omninous signs from facebook


Of course, concerted action by a directed group could achieve this. I wonder...

YouGov loses all credibility...again!

After grumbles about YouGov's dubious methodology during the leader's debates in April, their latest impartial and not at all leading question for the recent Sun poll on the AV referendum is a corker:

“Before the election the Conservative party criticised an AV referendum as likely to cost £80 million at a time when the government would be needing to make major spending cuts. In view of the government’s current cuts in public spending, do you think it is an appropriate or inappropriate time to hold a referendum on AV?”

Wow! That's not leading at all is it? Isn't there some polling code they should be following or something?

Oh and the same polling showed overall support for AV. The Sun strangely didn't mention that though!

H/T: UK Election Trend